Summary

Boot camps, a popular alternative to standard correctional
facilities, are characterized by a strong emphasis on military
structure, drill, and discipline and by an abbreviated period of
incarceration. In 1990, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) launched a demonstration program to develop boot
camp models for juveniles and to test the feasibility and
appropriateness of their implementation. In September 1991, three
groups received awards to develop and implement boot camps as
intermediate sanctions: the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in
Cleveland, Ohio, the Colorado Division of Youth Services in Denver,
Colorado, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Mobile,
Alabama. Simultaneously, the National Institute of Justice sponsored
an evaluation of the implementation of the demonstration programs,
focusing on the experiences of youths who entered the program during
the first year of operation, from 1992 to 1993. This collection
contains data from the program evaluation conducted on these three
boot camps during the first year. The core of the assessment was a
management information system that captured administrative data as the
offenders progressed through the demonstration program. At intake,
researchers collected demographic, criminal, and family and social
information. Demographic information collected at intake includes age,
race, education, and employment. Criminal data covers criminal
history, current offense, and case information, while family and
social history variables include whether the youths' parents had a
criminal record, whether their family received public assistance, and
whether they had delinquent friends, delinquent siblings, discipline
problems at home or school, or a history of psychological problems.
At the beginning and end of the boot camp term, staff rated the
youths' performance on educational and behavioral measures. The
youths were also surveyed about the rules of boot camp, their opinions
of instructors, and their self-esteem, drug and alcohol use, and
criminal behavior. At the end of the first 90 days (the residential
period), data were collected on the date of graduation, infractions
during boot camp, honors or awards, and special services
received. Five months after graduation, youths were evaluated on their
aftercare experiences. Some sites supplemented the basic management
information with data collected on educational performance, employment
history and expectations, physical fitness, and youth attitudes.

Geographic Coverage

Time Period(s)

1992 -- 1993

Date of Collection

1992 -- 1993

Data Collection Notes

(1) The principal investigators conducted another boot
camp evaluation under the same grant from the National Institute of
Justice. The scope and methods of the other evaluation differed
significantly from this study, and therefore it is archived under a
different study number. Users should consult EVALUATION OF THE FIRST
INCARCERATION SHOCK TREATMENT (FIST) PROGRAM FOR YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS IN
KENTUCKY, 1993-1994 (ICPSR 2698) for further information about this
evaluation. (2) The user guide, codebooks, and data collection
instruments are provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The
PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be
accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided
through the ICPSR Website on the Internet.

Study Purpose

Boot camps, a popular alternative to
incarceration, are characterized by a strong emphasis on military
structure, drill, and discipline and by an abbreviated period of
incarceration. In 1990, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) launched a demonstration program to develop boot
camp models for the juvenile system and to test the feasibility and
appropriateness of their implementation. In September 1991, three
groups received awards to develop and implement boot camps as
intermediate sanctions: (1) the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas
in Cleveland, Ohio, (2) the Colorado Division of Youth Services in
Denver, Colorado, and (3) the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Mobile,
Alabama. Simultaneously, the National Institute of Justice sponsored
an evaluation of the implementation of the demonstration programs,
focusing on the experiences of youths who entered the program during
the first year of operation, from 1992 to 1993. The evaluation sought
to address the following research questions: (1) To what extent do
juveniles in boot camps receive the services prescribed for them? (2)
What is the recidivism rate of the juveniles in the boot camp group as
compared with that of the control group? (3) What short-term benefits,
such as educational or vocational training, employment, or
restitution, result from participation in the program? (4) Are the
boot camps cost effective?

Study Design

This study was designed to be a process evaluation
and not an impact evaluation. The core of the assessment was a
management information system that captured administrative data as the
offenders progressed through the demonstration program. At intake,
researchers collected demographic, criminal, and family and social
history information. At the beginning and end of the boot camp term,
staff rated the youths' performance on educational and behavioral
measures. At the end of the first 90 days (the residential period),
data were collected on the date of graduation, infractions during boot
camp, honors or awards, and special services received. Five months
after graduation, youths were evaluated on their aftercare
experiences. Some sites were able to supplement the basic management
information with data collected on educational performance, employment
history and expectations, physical fitness, and youth attitudes.

Sample

Random assignment of eligible participants.

Universe

Young male delinquents in Cleveland, Denver, and Mobile.

Unit(s) of Observation

Individuals.

Data Source

Data Type(s)

survey data, and administrative records data

experimental data

Description of Variables

At intake, information was gathered on the degree
of the most serious current offense, the weapon involved, status in
the system at the time of arrest, score on drug screening
questionnaire, and primary court disposition imposed. Demographic
information collected at intake includes age, race, education, and
employment. Family and social history variables include whether the
youths' parents had a criminal record, whether their family received
public assistance, and whether they had delinquent friends, delinquent
siblings, discipline problems at home or school, or a history of
psychological problems. Criminal history data were collected on prior
sentence, filing complaint date, sentence date, and offense status.
Upon exiting the camp, data on infraction type, reason for exiting
camp, aftercare placement, and any new sentence were recorded. For the
aftercare program, data were collected on the date released from boot
camp to aftercare, type of educational program and counseling received
during aftercare, types of serious disciplinary infractions, and
length of new sentence. At program completion, data were gathered on
program completion status, reasons for dropping out, charges, outcome,
and placement. In Cleveland and Mobile education data were recorded on
reading, spelling, and math scores at the beginning and end of the
program. Cleveland also collected baseline data on education
completed, youth employment, type of work the youths expected to do as
adults, behavior with close friends, behavior of close friends, and
drug use. Physical fitness data, including number of push-ups,
sit-ups, and running time at the beginning and end of the program,
were also gathered in Cleveland. In all three sites, staff were asked
to rate the youths with regard to respecting authority, maintaining
self-control, acting responsibly, working well with others, and
maintaining their physical appearance. All three sites also surveyed
the juveniles about the rules of the boot camp, their opinions of
instructors, and their self-esteem, drug and alcohol use, and criminal
behavior.

Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales

The Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) and several
Likert-type scales were used.

Original Release Date

1999-11-02

Version Date

2006-03-30

Version History

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

2006-03-30 File CB6922.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

1999-11-02 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented.

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